Page 73 of The Cinderella Secret
“Anyway,” said Evan, looking guilty again, “Randall said he’d bring me home a brother, but nothing ever came of it and then they all died.”
Jackson tried to work out the math on the dates of the paperwork to their lives. “These would have been about nine months after Mom died. Nice to know he at least intended to come get me.”
“But I never said anything!” Evan sounded anguished.
“Brat moya,” said Jackson, which was Ukrainian, the shared nationality of their mothers, formy brother. “Did he ever tell you my name or where I was or anything?”
“No. And to tell the truth, I thought it was just one of his bullshit things he did to wind people up and make them react. But if I’d said something, Grandma would have at least known to look for you.”
Jackson thought about that. Life had sucked pretty hard after Mom died, but on the other hand, growing up at Deveraux House hadn’t done his cousins a lot of favors. He could have done without the stint in juvie, but overall, Jackson thought he’d done all right. Sometimes life just was what it was. He shrugged.
“I was pretty pissed after Mom died. Chances are I would have told you all to fuck off. I wasn’t ready for a family.” He tucked the folder back where he’d found it. He was going to have to come back here at some point and do a true inventory. Family secrets were probably buried here in between the furniture and the dusty hat boxes.
Evan laughed. “Because you’re such a settled adult family man now.”
“As far as anyone knows,” said Jackson with a grin. “Now stay there. I’ve got two more DevEntier boxes and one that looks like it might be, so we might as well just bring it.”
“You’re really not mad?”
“Nah,” said Jackson. “Water under the bridge. Do you think there are actually hats in those hat boxes?”
“Grandma used to have a top hat she let me wear. So, maybe. We’ll look after we get the boxes,” said Evan.
Jackson grinned. “God, I love being a Deveraux.”
27
Aiden – The Dinner Table
Aiden looked at Evan and Jackson bent over the various piles of paper and smiled. This was how it was supposed to be. He had expected Evan to return from the storage unit in one of his dark thundercloud moods, but instead he and Jackson had come back with silly hats and boxes of paperwork. Grandma had said the hats were part of a costume box from one of the relatives. Jackson had them hung on the deer antlers in the hall over the fireplace. Theo had frowned, of course, but Aiden noticed that he had made no efforts to relocate the hats.
When Evan ducked off to the bathroom, Jackson had managed a quick run-down on his trip to the storage locker with Evan which had been eye-opening as to why Evan didn’t want to attend the DevEntier board meetings. In return, Aiden gave a condensed version of his previous evening that left out Ella entirely. He didn’t think now was the time to mention Ella or why he trusted her. As usual, Jackson looked suspicious, but Aiden was beginning to think that was just Jackson’s default setting. The rest of the day passed in sorting through the boxes. Grandma looked in at lunch time, declared that family dinner was cancelled, and took herself off to Le Bernardin. Aiden didn’t blame her. Crowding all of them into the breakfast room for family dinner didn’t sound nearly as much fun as fancy French seafood and to-die-for wine.
The dining room doors opened, and Dominique came in. “I feel like Ishouldbe a part of this,” she said, scrutinizing the room. “But, in fact, I have no desire to.”
Jackson looked up, his eyes dancing. “Probably wise.”
“Although, Aiden, I think it’s rather annoying of you to preempt my big announcement.”
“Big announcement?” asked Aiden, frowning.
“Max is moving in with Nika,” said Evan, without looking up.
“What?” Aiden felt blindsided. “When? Did I… What?”
“Didn’t you read Jackson’s text?” asked Evan, staring at him. “He said we had to make supportive noises tonight at dinner. I had a wholethat’s greatthing I was going to do.”
“Did you?” asked Dominique, looking amused.
“That’s great!” said Evan, faking a cheerful face, which made Jackson laugh.
“I’m slightly horrified,” said Dominique. “Although, I appreciate the effort.”
“When did you send it?” asked Aiden, grabbing for his phone. “I swear I didn’t see that.”
“Like on Wednesday?” Jackson looked like he wasn’t sure. “I don’t know. Evan and I were watching the Granger coverage and drinking wine.”
“And you hit send. I remember,” said Evan, “because you had more than I did.” He sounded smug.
